Vela Creations is an in-depth resource for off grid living. The site documents our research and experiences, hoping that they might help others interested in pursuing this lifestyle. This blog is designed to document our day to day experiences as we build our new, sustainable homestead.
If you are interested in seeing more photos and videos, we have a flickr account at the following url:
http://flickr.com/photos/35090117@N05/collections/

Monday, November 30, 2015

We dropped the ball on Sophie's (our female dog) contraceptive. Somehow we miscalculated the date and she came into heat without us getting her another shot. Anyway, as soon as we realized what we'd done, we put her in one of the barn rooms, hoping that she may have avoided being bred. You may have gathered by the title of this post that we were wrong!

The other day, she disappeared. Given that our male, Sam, was still around (they often go off hiking together) and that it was around the due date, we assumed that it was her time. The only problem was that we couldn't find her anywhere, and it happened to be the one day in months that it was pouring with rain. Soaking wet and chilly, we gave up looking.

All of a sudden she came to the front door, birthed a puppy on the doorstep and then took off. I wrapped the pup in a blanket and gave it to the boys to keep warm and then went looking for her again. I eventually found her and brought her into the house with her pup, and set her up on a pile of old sheets. She instantly relaxed and went on to have a total of 9 puppies. They are all camped out in the entranceway room (as are the boys most of the time), and seem to be happy and healthy. Sophie is almost excessively attentive, although she does occasionally go outside, even if just for a little bit.

Once this litter is weaned, we will get her spayed. It was always our intention to let her breed once with Sam (although ideally we would have wanted her to be closer to 2 years old than to 1). Our other dog, Salsa, came from a shelter and was fixed before being released, and it always seemed a shame that she never got to be a mother. In the meantime, we get to enjoy these warm and fuzzy little bundles of joy!

Friday, November 20, 2015

Taken from one of the high points of the Al Baydha Project's demonstration site, this shows the growth of the project's agroforestry system. Two years were spent on constructing earthworks up in the mountains, and the first trees were planted in early 2012. The earthworks will catch and store up to 20,000 cubic meters in the earth, while the rate of irrigation is approximately 500 cubic meters per month. In summer of 2015, enough water was caught to irrigate the system for over 4 years. Thus if it rains within 4 years, the system will be passively increasing the amount of water in the water table and shallow aquifers.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Before going on our Halloween trip, we had a bunch of things to catch up on around the place, like cleaning out the grey water filter, mulching the orchard, butchering 17 rabbits, transplanting more little trees for our nursery, butchering the young Muscovy ducks, and more.

We had been putting off the whole duck thing, because we've been so busy and were dreading the plucking process. However, we plucked just two of them a couple of weeks ago and found it wasn't nearly as big a deal as we'd thought it would be. So, we set aside a whole day to do the remaining 12, and it all went smoothly.

We had a friend of ours helping, as I had to go into the kitchen to start processing the meat after we'd done 4 or 5, and the extra set of hands made a big difference.

We set up a big vat of hot water (about 165 degrees) over a fire, and added some dish soap and salt (these help cut through the waterproofing oils of duck feathers and make them come out easier). We would then let the duck bleed out and add it to the water for a couple of minutes, dunking it up and down in the water.

The plucking itself was pretty easy, except for a few who had a lot of pin feathers. And neither the gutting part nor the removal of the oil glands were a problem.

In the kitchen, I kept a few whole for roasting, but most of them I parted out into breasts, legs and wings. I also put several pounds of meat through the grinder. We are still experimenting with different forms of cooking this delicious meat, and all have turned out wonderful. The only problem we've encountered so far was a couple of older ones were a little tough, but soaking them in orange or pineapple juice takes care of that. And now that we know it's not too hard, we will be butchering them a little younger.

Tonight's dinner is going to be a variation of Shepherds pie, with duck meat and mashed sweet potatoes. Can't wait!

We had thought we were on top of the duck population, but this past week has seen another 13 ducklings born! Good job we just bought ourselves a plucker, because it seems like the ducks are now in full production, and we've added 3 more ducks and one drake to our breeding stock.